


Drought

by braveten



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/M, apocalypse au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 09:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2502449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braveten/pseuds/braveten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A gruesome drought has been plaguing the Earth for over a year, and the aftermath has left survivors scattered about the world. John Smith and Rose Tyler are simply two of them who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drought

When the Doctor thought back on this innocuous trip to gather supplies, he would wish he had been just a tad bit quieter.

A silver blade, most likely a knife, was pressed up against the hairs on the back of his neck and he swallowed, allowing the plastic bag in his hand to fall to the ground and its contents to spill out all around him. "Don't hurt me," he said in a quiet voice to whoever was behind him. "I'll leave. I won't take anything, I promise to just leave."

He heard breathing behind him, not exactly labored but nervous-sounding. It was higher pitched so he assumed he was talking to a woman. He let his eyes fall shut and he leaned his body forward to get away from the knife. It dug further into his skin. "What's your name?" the person asked, and he confirmed that it was most definitely a woman.

"I'm the Doctor," he explained. "Please, just remove the knife. I don't have any weapons except for a dagger on my belt. You can take it off of me."

He heard the sound of leather on metal and then heard his jagged-edged dagger clattering to the floor. The woman spoke again, "What's your real name?"

"It's John Smith," he relented. "People call me the Doctor. I'm not lying."

Then, the knife finally left his skin and hands were placed on his shoulders. "Put out your arms behind you with your wrists together," she commanded. He did as she asked, wanting to turn around to see her face but not daring. Then, he heard the clicking sound of metal and realized what was about to happen.

He felt cool skin against his and soon two metal cuffs, each annoyingly a tad bit too tight, covered his wrists. "Sorry about this," she mumbled. "Precautions, yeah?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. He had always hated handcuffs - and weapons in general. "Can I get up now?"

He heard the girl stepping away and he took it as a yes, lifting himself onto his feet and swirling around clumsily. He got a good look at her, then, hunched over and exploring the contents that had previously been in his plastic bag.

They were standing in an abandoned market, one miraculously containing a few valuable contents and two bottles of water. He had packed up what he had wanted into a bag, not fathoming that anyone was in the building with him. Apparently, this girl could be as quiet as a mouse.

She was wearing a dark gray blouse that was cut in a few places and had a ragged hem as if it had been cut in a hurry with a knife. Black cloth shorts and matching shoes covered the rest of her, but most of her toned legs were visible. In fact, it looked as if she was wearing hardly anything.

Not that that was surprising. After all, he was only in shorts and a shirt himself. The Drought had left everyone he'd seen recently wearing only short sleeves and occasionally hats. John himself had a baseball cap packed in his backpack which, he noted, was still probably lying by one of the aisles in the store.

Thinking about it, he wasn't even sure how many days it had been since the Drought started. It had been all over the news at first, everyone in panic and sharing theories and thoughts and what in the world they were going to do about it. Although scientists, of course, had ideas about what had caused it, nobody really knew. The only thing known was that they had to do something about it, and they had to do it fast.

The land had dried up and sand swept over lands, causing deserts to grow exponentially in size. Entire cities had been taken over by the heat and people died by the thousands across the globe. Electricity began failing from falling power plants and crashing utility poles. Cell phones and soon after the Internet stopped working altogether. Plants were dead and dying all throughout the world, air was growing thicker and most importantly, water was fading.

The world had gone into complete anarchy. People were scattered about, surviving in the wastelands and abandoned cities, but nobody really knew what was going on globally. Perhaps there was still a country or two left thriving, aware of the rest of the world's suffering. Or maybe everyone was just dead, along with everything else.

"Why were you gathering spicy food? Not hot enough yet for you out there?" The girl asked, raising an eyebrow at the bottle of 'Super Extra Savory Spicy' salsa that had previously been in the bag and the half-empty bag of chips that went with it.

"It's…" his voice trailed off and he shook his head. He really didn't have any reason to help this girl. "Nothing. Don't worry about it. I just like salsa."

The girl frowned and hunched down in front of him. For the first time, he got a proper look at her face. She was blonde and rather pretty, if he was honest, with large caramel colored eyes. Her hair was cut around her shoulders in an unruly manner, but somehow she made the style seem to fit her and look good at the same time.

"You're lying," she pointed out.

He sighed and attempted to make a hand gesture to explain himself with his hands before remembering they were restrained by metal. "Spicy foods stimulate heat receptors in the mouth. They enhance circulation and cause sweating, which cools your body down."

The girl blinked in surprise before nodding and placing the contents back into the bag.

John watched her as she worked, walking up and down the aisle and scanning all the contents. He saw her pick up his dagger and examine it thoroughly. "What's your name?" he asked, thinking if he was going to be her prisoner he would rather like to know what to call her.

"Do you care?" she asked, running two fingers over the handle of the dagger and not bothering to look at him.

"Yeah, I do, actually," he replied.

"Bit cheeky, aren't you?" The girl slipped the dagger into her belt expertly and looked at him with her arms akimbo. "This would be easier if we just didn't talk."

"What would be easier?" he asked innocently.

She rolled her eyes. "Me getting what I want and getting out of here and making sure that I'm a few miles away before you get out of those things."

He raised his hands behind his back and frowned. "These things?"

She laughed briefly and turned away to examine the aisle some more. "My name is Rose."

"Nice name," he said. "Too bad all the actual roses are dead."

"Not all of them," she replied with a much more conversational inflection. Perhaps things would go his way today after all. "I saw a few, before."

"Oh yeah?" John's eyebrows shot to his hairline. "I haven't."

Rose grabbed something he couldn't see off of the shelf and shoved it into the plastic bag. "So where's your stuff?" she asked.

He swallowed, though she couldn't see. "I beg your pardon?"

"I'm not stupid," she stated. "I know you wouldn't come here with just an empty plastic bag, and, frankly, I don't want to take it. Where is it?"

"At the end of the fourth aisle," he answered, lowering himself down so that he could lean on the edge of a shelf. "Not like I have anything worth taking. I do, however, have an implausibly valuable pack of gum. You're welcome to a piece," he offered with a bright smile.

Rose rolled her eyes, though she was smiling at him. "Really now?"

"Well, actually, it's empty," he said thoughtfully, wanting to run a hand through his hair but remembering the cuffs. "Sorry to disappoint."

"Might just cry," Rose mused. "I'd kill for a pack of gum."

"Had I known that I wouldn't have told you about it."

She laughed at that and he couldn't help but smile at his success. Maybe she'd let him out now and he could get the hell out of here before she decided she wanted to kill him. Then again, she didn't seem like a bad person. There were plenty of people who would have killed him the moment they saw him.

"So, you got a group?" Rose asked him, plucking more items off of shelves and shoving them in the plastic bag.

He shook his head. "Just little old me, I'm afraid. How about you?"

She stared at him, as if debating with herself on whether or not to answer. After a while, she shook her head. "No, just me, too. Well, I used to be with people… It didn't work out."

So she had lost someone. That explained her less-than-optimistic ways. Then again, it was probably rare to be optimistic in times like these. John just tried to see the best of every situation.

"We could work together?" he offered, his face teasing but his voice completely serious. "We'd be a great pair! Bacon and eggs? Cytosine and thymine? Fish and chips? Tom and Jerry? Shiver and shake?"

Rose laughed again. "Which one's shiver?"

"Oh, I'm shake," he said happily.

She sat down across from him, taking a water bottle out of his plastic bag and rolling it towards him. "Need water?"

His eyebrows shot to his hairline, genuinely surprised by her offer. "Always," he replied, gesturing towards his hands. "If I promise not to jump you while I am, might I point out, completely underpowered and weaponless, will you unlock the cuffs?"

Rose bit her lower lip, considering him. She produced a key from her backpack and gave him a cautioning look. "You make one move, I'm going to kill you with your own dagger. Am I clear?"

He swallowed. "Crystal."

She unlocked the cuffs and he massaged his wrists before picking up the bottle of water and taking a long sip. "God, it tastes good," he muttered.

Rose opened up a bottle herself and took a sip before closing the cap and shoving it back in the bag. "It's amazing."

After a moment of savoring the taste of the water, the Doctor pulled the plastic bag towards him and began looking through it. "You got good stuff," he pointed out. "Toilet paper, a little juice, food, ooo! Bananas!" He gave her a grin that could light up a football stadium. "You've got bananas!"

Rose gave him a quizzical look, a smile playing on her features. "You're excited about the bananas?"

He tossed one yellow fruit up in the air and caught it perfectly. "I love bananas! Bananas are brilliant!"

She shook her head. "You're probably the weirdest person I've ever met."

"Oh, don't say that! You've probably met lots of weird people!" She shook her head again. "What, no crazy uncle?" he asked, making a vague hand gesture above his head. "No insane grandmother?"

"My mother is a bit crazy, but not medically insane," she laughed, leaning forward and poking him in the chest. As soon as she completed the action, she was somewhat unsure of why she had done it.

The Doctor scoffed. "I'm not medically insane either. Bet your mother and me would get along real well, though."

"I kind of doubt that."

He frowned. "Why's that?"

"Dunno," Rose said, squinting her eyes at him. "Just a feeling. Why are you called Doctor?"

He gave her a smile. "I was a doctor before, well, all this. People always called me that. I don't really know why, it all started with my friend Donna."

"Mmm. Interesting," she hummed, folding her arms across her chest as if studying him.

"Anyways, what do you say to being a team? I need someone who can teach me how to be quiet, that's evident by how easily you caught me in here, and you could use my boyish good looks."

Rose quirked an eyebrow. "You saying I'm not good looking?"

John felt himself blushing and he ran a hand through his chestnut-colored hair. "No! That's not what I meant. I just, well, you're not boyish looking, quite the opposite in fact… And you're not, I mean, I'm not…" He noted her amused look. "You were just teasing me, weren't you?" Rose nodded snugly. "Oh, that's… Well…"

"You're not very good at being quiet," she pointed out. "I could have heard you from a mile away."

He smiled. "Well, you could teach me. And I can teach you… Er… I know Portuguese! Speak lots of good Portuguese."

Rose laughed and scooted herself around so that she was next to him, her legs bent at the knees and her arms hugging them close to her chest. "Teach me something in Portuguese."

"Why?" he asked, surprised that she was interested.

"I haven't had a fun conversation in, like, a year," she complained. "Teach me some Portuguese."

"Olá."

Rose grinned. "Olá?"

"Means hello," he explained. "Now, A cabra anda pelo jardim e pergunta sobre os graprfruits."

"What?" she asked. "Grapefruits?"

Before he could give her the translation, there was a loud banging on the door.

Without hesitation, Rose lifted herself up onto the balls of her feet silently and grabbed John by the elbow, guiding him to follower her.

Quiet as mice, they approached the back of the store to hide. John grabbed his backpack on the way and Rose grimaced at the quiet swooshing sound of the item leaving the floor. Hopefully the people outside hadn't heard that. Rose gestured towards an old storage room, which had been raided quite thoroughly and evidently hadn't had much there in the first place. They both swung open the handle-less door and pressed themselves to the wall next to it.

 

After a moment, Rose heard a nearby voice. It was a man's, probably someone older.

"I found something!" a man shouted and the Doctor heard something scraping against the floor.

"What is it?" another voice asked, this one slightly higher pitched but still distinctly masculine. "A piece of paper?"

The first voice hummed. "Nah, it's a photograph. A little kid and a woman."

Rose felt John stiffen beside her and he leaned in closer to her, mouth opening to whisper something. Scared he would be too loud or make any noise that may endanger them at all, she lifted her hand to his lips and firmly placed it over his mouth. He leaned back slowly and she let out a small silent sigh of relief.

"Someone must have left it here," the higher voice mused. "That chick is really hot."

"Yeah, she is."

Rose looked downwards without moving her head and saw John's right hand had tightened into a fist around the handle of his backpack and his knuckles were pale. She moved one hand down to his and he startled, looking up at her with a sort of pain in his eyes she hadn't noted before.

She made a mental note to ask him about the picture later, but for now they needed to get a plan into action. If these men were planning on searching the full store, which they probably were, they were going to have to get out of the storage room fast. Rose noted a small closet door hidden behind a few cardboard boxes. She nodded in that direction and looked towards John, who seemed to understand.

Rose tiptoed across the room, sneaking a quick glance towards the door they had come through to make sure nobody was looking through the window at them. She ducked down anyways and John, the Doctor, she wasn't really sure what to call him, mimicked her behavior perfectly.

The men continued talking. "Looks like someone has been here, it's already raided."

"I'm gonna check the storage room," the other man said.

Rose panicked and turned her body sideways to sneak behind the box and into the room. John followed quietly behind her and she shut the door silently after them, eyes refusing to adjust to the darkness.

It was a small room, some sort of mechanical equipment closet. She could feel John's hand on the small of her back from when he had been helping her get past the boxes and in through the door. His thumb was rubbing small circles for comfort, but somehow it seemed to only spark her nerves more.

He moved his hand from her back to her arm and then down to her hand, his fingers never leaving her skin so that she knew precisely where he was in the darkness. They could hear the man in the room next door and Rose prayed that he wouldn't choose to check this closet for items.

"Not much in here," the man called. "Just a ton of boxes."

"Open them up," the other man encouraged from far away, his voice was more muffled.

Rose pressed tighter against the wall as they heard the man's footsteps getting closer and closer to the door. She figured he must have been opening the boxes right outside the room they were in. The sound of bare hands shredding apart cardboard reverberated around the room and she felt John grab her hand in his, squeezing it tight.

Rose squeezed back, offering him reassurance, and took in a deep breath through her nose. Her upper back was digging into some sort of machinery attached to the wall and she could feel some sort of wire poking at her.

"Nothing in these boxes either, damn it," the man outside the room said, kicking a box loudly. Rose froze up at the noise and moved her other hand to clasp John's as well, glad that she had someone with her and wasn't facing this fear alone. "Hey, do you have more bullets?"

"Yeah, I've got, like, fifty rounds," the higher pitched man replied. "How many you want?"

"Eh, like half."

They heard the noise of bullets being passed from one hand to the other and Rose wished the earth would simply swallow her up. John set his backpack down on the ground, the noise of it covered by the loud clinking of the bullets. Rose internally applauded him for being smart about his actions.

He stepped slightly closer to her, his eyes trained straight on the door. They wouldn't be able to see him at all through the door's window now. "I found a water bottle!" one man yelled happily.

"Pass it, I want some," the other man returned.

Rose listened, her nose scrunching up at the sound of their belching and moaning from the pleasurable feeling of the water down their parched throats. "Should we get out of here?" the higher pitched man asked.

She heard the crinkling of plastic and the sound of the empty plastic bottle being thrown to the ground. "I want to do one last look around, maybe someone left a pack somewhere or something," the other replied before coughing violently. "That water had a nasty aftertaste."

"Don't complain. It's water, after all."  
One of the men left the room and Rose and John heard his footsteps falter with each step away he took. The other man remained in the storage room, ripping open the rest of the boxes and humming a random tune while he did so.

Rose felt tension build up in her chest with each emptied box. He wouldn't come in the room, she tried to assure herself. There was no way.

She felt John's hand squeeze hers again and she squinted to see him in the light. His expression was solemn, and his eyes were displaying a different emotion that she couldn't read. The freckles scattered across his face were somehow more prominent in the darkness. He shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and she wondered how long he had been doing that that she hadn't noticed.

"There's a few rooms in there," the far-away voice called. "Might want to check 'em out. Could've been someone hiding out in there. Maybe look for a freezer, too? That'd be a miracle if there was anything in there, but it's worth a shot."

John tensed up beside her and she awkwardly rubbed her thumb around the back of his hand. She tried to display a silent, mollifying message to him with her eyes. They were safe. They were safe.

She was proven wrong when the man approached right up to the doorway and let out a sigh. "There's a room here, looks empty," he called loudly.

Rose wasn't sure when she had stopped breathing, but she could see the man's shadow through the window. She could hear his light breath and he smelt like booze and dirty laundry. John's fingers drummed against her wrist in a four-beat rhythm that she just barely registered. It was a warning, she realized after a moment. A warning to be ready to run and attack at any instance.

The man opened the door with a few fingers and light spilled into the room, not casting on them - yet - but illuminating most of the room nevertheless. The man stepped inside, running a hand down his face. Rose got a good look at him, then.

He had a long red beard and was built like a wrestler, wearing a red and black plaid shirt that had the sleeves cut off - most likely by scissors - at the shoulder. His hair was ragged and wild and he had a giant tattoo covering his right arm, it looked like two snakes eating each other simultaneously.

Then everything happened at once.

There was shouting, a loud shouting and a gunshot that rang loudly in her ears and drained out everything else.

A pain erupted in the side of her head, near her temple, and then the back of her skull burned and she swore she could feel her brain toppling around in her head. Rose let out a groan, whether it was internal or external she wasn't sure.

Her eyelids were growing heavier and heavier and she desperately tried to figure out what was happening above her. There were two figures, their limbs flying. More shouting, so much shouting. Consciousness slipped from her slowly as her entire body pulsed in pain.


End file.
